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I had this post scheduled and then realized it would be posted on the day we celebrate Martin Luther King’s Birthday. I hope this is a tribute to the great work he did to help move our society forward. While his work is mostly associated with helping African American’s, all groups have benefitted and advanced because of his work. Rights for all groups have improved dramatically over the last 100 to 200 years. Women, religious groups, LGBTQ, and other marginalized groups have gained more rights and that is a wonderful sign of progress. As noted, the ability to CHOOSE a path in life, to have that freedom, is strong determining factor in the quality of our lives. Although life with purpose and meaning isn’t always associated with more happiness this only happen because meaning and purpose bring with it stress, worry and struggle. Meaning and purpose is a sign of a better life or at least one most would desire. Thank you Martin Luther King for helping move human kind to a better, more compassionate way of being. The point of this post, however, is to help us understand why we sometimes do not appreciate the tremendous progress we have made.

As humans, we need evidence to demonstrate we are doing better. Unfortunately, we are believing species and we can be misled (see Innate Gullibility highlights the Value of Predictability and Undoing Needed because Mental Illusions Impact Us). For instance, despite the fact we are doing dramatically better than ever before on so many fronts, many believe things are worse than ever because we forget how far we have come. We are more connected, more kind and more caring to each other than ever before. Of course there are problems, yet what should be most important to to feel good for how are we have come. We should record and note progress, what I refer to as Plotting Progress.

In Steven Pinkers excellent book,”Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress” he explains we forget the progress made because because the tracks of progress are erased. They are erased because we turn our attention to what remains to be done rather than how far we have come. Very convincing data upon data presented throughout the book demonstrates he amazing progress humans have made with regard to health, sustenance, wealth, inequality, the environment, peace, safety, terrorism democracy, equal rights, knowledge, quality of life, happiness and existential threats. He documents the progress while acknowledging there are still threats. Overwhelmingly, however he makes abundantly clear we are much better off than we were. For instance some suggest technology has keeps from person to person contact, yet previously, because of cost and ability to travel we were not able to see others much. Now, because of technology, lower costs, increased freedom of movement and much more, we are able to connect more than ever. Think of extended family members who can now see grandchildren and or other family members at essentially no cost through FaceTime, Skype or other applications.

A personal example was evident when my daughter did a summer trip to Peru with a college group. When she was in Peru, not only could we talk to her at anytime, even see her often through technology, we could track her as long as he had her phone or watch on her person. When my wife came to America from Sweden in college, here parents had to just hope they would hear from her regularly. This is a dramatic difference.

The belief that we are worse off despite us being so much better off could be a loss aversion reaction. By this I mean we are very afraid of losing what we have. As Kahneman & Tversky, Barbara Fredrickson and Corey Keye’s research demonstrates, along with what I show in my work, negative is more impactful than positive events. The general understanding is that we need to have a 3:1 ratio of positive to negative events to be thriving or to feel as if we are flourishing.

In the Global Wellness Brief, economist Thierry Malleret addressed this issue by asking, The World Is Better Than It’s Ever Been, So Why Are We So Miserable? Malleret hypothesizes these increased opportunities have created to much distress. Either way, this highlights why a step of the Paneugenesis Process or how to create all good is to “Plot Process”. We must take time to document the progress that has been made from our efforts so the tracks do not disappear. The other value of Plotting Process is it gives a place to start to engaging in continual improvement.

As a reminder, Paneugenesis is a way to generate comprehensive improvements by generating pervasive reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. We all can do this…

Practice Paneugenesis using this 4 Step to Process

Operationalize Desired Idealized Outcome

Determine an Idealized outcome that is better or improved from what is possible or able to happen now

Must incorporate Systems Thinking so the outcome benefits are on multiple levels without any seen harm to other levels

Discover and Develop Necessary Precursors to make Desired Outcome Possible

Research to discover what must come before idealized outcome, what must be true for desired outcome to occur

Assess current process to discover and learn current processes used or must be created to manifest ideal outcomes

Optimize the Process to Develop Skills and abilities that make Precursors possible(this is Green Grass philosophy, its designing a process to help grass grow)

Develop good practices (append existing or start new processes)

Update unneeded, outdated or inappropriate actions to ones that created idealized vision, and

Plot Progress to document, demonstrate, and celebrate Improvement

Measure and document progress forward toward idealized outcome

Plan and develop next steps to enable continual improvement

Although the point of this post was to appreciate our progress, we must never forget to continually build on that progress or consequences. In other words, we must continually work to achieve progress. As you know, I will work for progress by generating comprehensive improvements by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits, or by practicing paneugenesis. I look forward to hearing about the progress you help generate.

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We are all in this together. As you begin 2019, I encourage you to take Selfish, Selfless, Synergistic actions that result in pervasive, reciprocal interactions from which everyone and everything benefits. As Frank Borman quoted when he saw our blue planet:

To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know now that they are truly brothers. – Archibald MacLeish

Keep in mind, when you are helping others you are helping yourself and this ripples out for and to everyone and everything. As Charles Schulz showed us in Peanuts:

Make it a beneficial ripple. Choose to be the hero:

A way to make 2019 better, will be to join “Team Human” as media theorist Douglas Rushkoff discusses in his TED Talk, ” How to be ‘Team Human’ in the Digital Future. Enjoy.

Please share your thoughts on how you will take action to help create a better tomorrow. Lets make 2019 Great, I will do what I can! Let me know if how I can help you…

Great book. Not sure I would have believed most of what was written had I not experienced this helpful and valuable therapy. Myself, my wife and kids all have had therapy and it is as good as advertised. To me this is a much more appropriate way of care, being proactive to be better, or well’R as I promote. Approaches, as originally termed by Amory Lovins in 1975 can take a “soft path” or a “hard path”. Lovins explained the “soft path” would be with the natural rhythms of the world, like with renewable energy, and this would not have many detrimental side effects because of its compatibility with nature and our socio-political values. The “hard path”, on the other hand, for energy requires digging ancient sunshine from fossil fuels and burning it with factories and excavation, which we all know has multiple negative impacts on society. His words are prescient and this idea of a soft or hard path can be applied to most issues. In health the “soft path” is called salutogenesis or a health creation and or a health origins approach and the “hard path” is the pathogenesis approach or disease origins, fix the problem approach. The KORE “soft path” approach is important and valuable because despite doing all everything we can to be well, things still happen or as explained by this book, imbalances, and using KORE helps without causing other damaging problems or side-effects. It would be helpful to get this approach more common in America. I encourage all to learn about Dr. Brazier’s KORE Therapy.

I was honored to be interviewed by Mari Ryan, MBA, MHP, CWP of Advancing Wellness. She is a workplace well-being strategist guiding organizations to create people-centric workplaces. During her career, she has worked with businesses of all sizes from start-ups to global powerhouses such as Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, and Northrup Grumman. She brings a wealth of experience and expertise.

You can access the interview here where she talks to me about how to go on offense to cause health promotion gains. Enjoy!

Please share your thoughts on how you will take action to help create a better tomorrow.

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These are 2 great presentations. Barry Schwartz made a fantastic 2009 TED presentation I encourage you to watch. It is even more relevant today than it was in 2009. To me much of what he says is at the heart of Practicing Paneugenesis or generating all good. The presentation explains what is necessary, possibly precursors to creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. Enjoy and please write back to share your thoughts.

This next presentation by Chad Freshman: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming. As he points out, the ideas associated with “draw down” not only does this reverse our problem, they are solutions from which everyone benefits. As he state near the end,

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If we want to create a desired future, we must cause it to happen, at least help make it more likely. New things do not materialize by simply not doing something that leads to undesired outcomes. Think of the logic. It is suggested that doing certain things leads to what is undesired and not doing those things makes what is unwanted less likely. Though not engaging in disease causing actions may help prevent what is not desired, how can it help generate what is desired? To caused desired outcomes, although no single actions is enough, it seems necessary to take action to help make what is desired happen. This is the same logic, if certain actions contribute to undesired outcomes, doesn’t this also suggest certain actions can help cause desired outcomes? However we must always remember comprehensive efforts are more effective.

What makes things happen, however, is being confused by the strategic release of conflicting information. Information is deceptively promoted that certain actions are neutral or even beneficial, rather than harmful. Daily we hear about actions being taken that undercut our existing beliefs and the truth of facts is being attacked from many sides.

Dr. Michael Greger, in 3 videos below, demonstrates how they do this in science. Bias studies are completed by comparing bad to bad and then they suggest because it is not any worse than another problem, it is not harmful. This seems to sow the idea of doubt. What do you think?

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Actions that result in the best outcome for anyone can often be viewed as selfish acts because they help themselves or selfless acts that help others. As President BillClinton and then Joey from Friends, explains, selfish and selfless are the same thing…

In the article, Friedman suggests America, for the last 70 years since WWII has been providing a leadership role to encourage countries to make good choices for its citizens instead of hoarding resources and letting their citizens be poor and disadvantaged. He suggests because of this, “…we have been living in the greatest prosperity ever known — globally — and we’ve witnessed the most widespread booming of democracy and the longest period of great-power peace ever known.”

Why did we do this? According to Friedman, his writing seems to suggest selfish, selfless, synergistic motives:

We did not do all of this out of an abundance of generosity, or the post-World War II statesmen saying, ‘Gosh, how do we make the world a better place?’” he added. “It actually came from them saying: ‘How do we prevent the world backsliding into the kind of world war we just survived?’” This was not charity for them, but cold, calculating self-interest. They knew any order they created would pay back a hundred times for the world’s biggest economy.

In other words, this liberal world order “is not the product of human evolution” — as if human beings have somehow learned to be more peaceful with one another, Kagan argued. It developed because the most powerful nation on the planet, the United States of America, “was born of Enlightenment principles,” and, after being dragged into two world wars in the 20th century, it decided to use its power to spread and maintain those principles — not everywhere and always, but in many places a lot of the time.

In other words, he seems to be suggesting we should work to generate comprehensive improvements by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits! Please share your thoughts.

If you are interested, here is a short video about selfish selfless synergy: